Dan's Papers - May 7, 2010 - The Oldest House in Sag Harbor

I thought that I knew which house was the oldest house in Sag Harbor. I was sure that I knew which houses were the contenders. I quite liked that what I believed to be Sag Harbor's oldest houses surrounded my circa 1914 home.

Sag Harbor traces its founding to the year 1707, when it was first mentioned as "Sag Harbor" in Southampton Town records. But there were probably no permanent residences in Sag Harbor until the 1740s. Until this time, only a very few white men occupied shanties near Turkey Hill, only part of the year. These settlers were either fishermen or farmers who gathered the local salt hay.

You couldn't call Sag Harbor "bustling" until the late 18th century when the whaling industry took off. This is when Turkey Hill was leveled to fill in the swamp that was then Sag Harbor or "Great Meadows," as it had been known in earlier times.

So Sag Harbor couldn't possibly have any buildings from before the 1740s, right? Well of course it can, Sag Harbor history is nothing if not complex and contradictory.

In earlier centuries people moved buildings around like, well, kind of like today's mobile homes. Except back in the day they used greased logs and oxen, instead of tractor trailers. The lumber and the copious amount of labor required to carve that lumber made houses and barns very valuable, far more valuable than the land they occupied.

So my choice for the oldest house in Sag Harbor is that sweet, white cottage on Union Street that was moved to Sag Harbor from Sagaponack. Originally built in the 1640s, much of what's there now dates to 1693. I long to decorate it with antiques and Shabby Chic bedding.

I figured that this little gem beat out The Umbrella House on Division Street. Someone told me when I moved to Sag Harbor that the Umbrella House (now a wine shop) was the oldest house in Sag Harbor.

The Umbrella House is an odd one. It's name comes from its uniquely shaped "umbrella" roof. It housed British troops during the Revolution and was shot by cannon during the War of 1812. But don't believe everything you read. I came across a web site that points out that "the light colored bricks on the lower left" denote where the canon ball hit it. Nope, that's where the SUV hit it six years ago.

I figured there were two other contenders for oldest house: Sag Harbor's smallest house at XX Hampton Street and the Hand House on Church Street. I knew that the tiny house had been moved to Hampton Street from the wharf and that its former owner had doubled its size in the 20th century. It seems like something that tiny has to be especially old.

The Hand House is such a dark and crooked spectacle, it seemed like it could predate its most famous occupant by many years. This house was home to Captain David Hand, a local Revolutionary soldier who is fabled to have been the inspiration for James Fenimore Cooper's most famous hero Natty Bumppo. You may have read about Bumppo's adventures in the Leatherstocking series of novels, still read by school children in the 20th century. Bumppo's nickname was "Hawkeye."

I was once again reminded of just how very complex and contradictory our local history is when I asked Sag Harbor Historian Dorothy Zaykowski and Southampton Town Historian Zach Studenroth if I had indeed picked Sag Harbor's oldest house. They gave the same, short answer: "That could be."

Records are scanty and much of Sag Harbor burned down in 1845 and in 1877 and yet again in 1881. So...records are scanty.

But Studenroth added three more houses to the mix. He said that the older portion of Sag Harbor's Custom House appears to go "way, way back" and that the older, "hidden house" within the Marpurgo House behind Sag Harbor's Library may also be 17th century. Plus, he pointed out, that the Annie Cooper Boyd House, where the Sag Harbor Historical Society is headquartered is even older than it looks.

Whew! That's a lot to take in. Oh well, that sweet, white cottage on Union Street is the only one of Sag Harbor's oldest houses on the market right now, represented by Beth Troy of Town & Country Real Estate. At $925K, it must also be the one of the most reasonably priced houses in the village. I'm putting it at the top of my Mother's Day Wish List. To be continued.